Effectiveness of using parody-integrated teaching strategy on English as a foreign language learners` writing proficiency and critical thinking

Abstract

The main focus of this study is to investigate the effects of parody-integrated ‎teaching strategy on the development of English as a Foreign Language Learners’ ‎‎(EFL) writing proficiency and critical thinking skills. A class comprising 36 ‎undergraduates was studied for this purpose. They consisted of students who were ‎doing Engineering at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). These students ‎took UWB 10102 Academic English subject as part of their curriculum. In this class, ‎parody-integrated strategy was integrated into the syllabus of the subject. For data ‎collection purposes, Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) Level X was ‎administered three times; at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the ‎semester. The test was performed to measure the improvement in students’ critical ‎thinking skills. Besides CCTT Level X, argumentative essay was also administered ‎three times to measure students’ improvement in their writing skills. Repeated ‎Measures ANOVA was used to analyse the collected scores from the CCTT Level X ‎and argumentative essays. Analysis shows that the EFL students’ critical thinking ‎sub-skills which are deduction, induction, credibility and assumption identification ‎did not significantly improve after parody-integrated teaching strategy was applied ‎on them. However, significant improvement was found in their overall critical ‎thinking skill scores over the semester after receiving the treatments. Their scores for ‎the argumentative essay also shows a significant improvement. The present study ‎concludes that parody-integrated teaching strategy brought positive effect on the ‎development of EFL learners’ critical thinking skills and writing proficiency. This ‎supports the relevance of using parody to developEFL learners’ critical thinking and ‎writing proficiency. The relevance of the study to language teachers was highlighted ‎and the necessary recommendations for future research on parody-integrated teaching ‎and learning was also suggested.